<html><!-- $Id$ --><head><title>The Isabelle System Distribution</title></head><body><h1>The Isabelle System Distribution</h1><h2>Version information</h2>This is the internal repository version of Isabelle. The current lineof Isabelle99 development introduces many new concepts, whileattempting to keep incompatibilities over Isabelle98 at a minimum.See the <tt>NEWS</tt> file in the distribution for more details.<h2>System requirements</h2>Isabelle requires a real Unix box with sufficient resources. Funstarts at about 32-64 MB of free main memory (somewhat depending onthe ML system), with several tens of MB disk space and a decent CPU.Speaking by today's hardware standards, any moderate Linux box shouldgive a very nice platform for Isabelle.<p>Furthermore, Isabelle needs the following software, which is not partof the distribution:<ul><li> A full Standard ML Compiler (e.g. Poly/ML).<li> The GNU bash shell (version 1.x or 2.x).<li> Perl 5.x - the Pathologically Eclectic Rubbish Lister (Perl 4.xis <em>not</em> sufficient).</ul><p>The following ML system and platform combinations are known to workvery well:<ul><li> Poly/ML 3.x on Linux/x86 and Solaris/Sparc.<li> SML/NJ 110.x on any Unix platform (Linux, Suns, SGI etc.).</ul><p> <a href="http://www.polyml.org/">Poly/ML</a>, previously acommercial product, is back in the free world. It is by far the bestcompiler for running Isabelle, requiring the least memory and offeringthe highest performance.<p> <ahref="http://cm.bell-labs.com/cm/cs/what/smlnj/software.html">SML/NJ</a>needs lots of store and disk space, but supports many more platforms.The current official release is 110. Basically, we still support theold 0.93 release, but do not recommend to use it under normalcircumstances.<p> MLWorks is a commercial ML programming environment developed by <ahref="http://www.harlequin.com/">Harlequin</a> and was unfortunatelywithdrawn after that company was taken over. Isabelle on MLWorks 2.0works reasonably well. It is about 20% faster than on SML/NJ whileusing slightly less memory and disk space. A few features (e.g. MLtop-level pretty printing) are not supported, though.<h2>Installation</h2>Binary packages are available for Isabelle/HOL and ZF on the Linux/x86platform. The system may be easily built from scratch as well, takingthe traditional tar.gz source distribution. See file <tt>INSTALL</tt>as distributed with Isabelle for more information.Further background information may be found in the <em>Isabelle SystemManual</em>, distributed with the sources (directory <tt>doc</tt>).<h2>User interface</h2>The canonical Isabelle user interface is <ahref="http://www.proofgeneral.org">Proof General</a> by David Aspinalland others. It is a generic (X)Emacs interface for proof assistants,including Isabelle (both for the classic and Isar version). ProofGeneral is suitable for use by pacifists and Emacs militantsalike. Its most prominent feature is script management, providing ametaphor of <em>live proof script editing</em>. Proof General hasrecently gained a rather large following of both beginning and expertusers of Isabelle.<p>Proof~General may be used together with the Emacs<a href="http://www.fmi.uni-passau.de/~wedler/x-symbol/">X-Symbol package</a>, which provides a nice way to get propermathematical symbols displayed on screen.<h2>Other sources of information</h2><h3>The Isabelle Page</h3>The Isabelle home page may be accessed both from Cambridge and Munich:<ul><li> <ahref="http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/Research/HVG/Isabelle/">http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/Research/HVG/Isabelle/</a><li> <a href="http://isabelle.in.tum.de">http://isabelle.in.tum.de</a></ul><h3>Mailing list</h3>The electronic mailing list <tt>isabelle-users@cl.cam.ac.uk</tt>provides a forum for Isabelle users to discuss problems and exchangeinformation. To join, send a message to <ahref="mailto:isabelle-users-request@cl.cam.ac.uk">isabelle-users-request@cl.cam.ac.uk</a>.<h3>Personal mail</h3><a href="http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/users/lcp/">Lawrence C Paulson</a><br>Computer Laboratory<br>University of Cambridge<br>Pembroke Street<br>Cambridge CB2 3QG<br>England<br><br>E-mail: <A HREF="mailto:lcp@cl.cam.ac.uk">lcp@cl.cam.ac.uk</A><br>Phone: +44-223-334600<br>Fax: +44-223-334748<br><p>or<p><a href="http://www.in.tum.de/~nipkow/">Tobias Nipkow</a><br>Institut f�r Informatik<br>T. U. M�nchen<br>D-80290 M�nchen<br>Germany<br><br>E-mail: <A HREF="mailto:nipkow@in.tum.de">nipkow@in.tum.de</A><br>Phone: +49-89-289-22690<br>Fax: +49-89-289-28183<br><p><hr>Please report any problems you encounter. While we shall try to behelpful, we can accept no responsibility for the deficiencies ofIsabelle and their consequences.<hr></body></html>